Science and Methodological Naturalism
Part of the debate over ID involves the question of whether science is committed to methodological naturalism. Everyone agrees that science is not committed to atheism or to naturalism. Methodological naturalism is the method of investigating a subject that proceeds as if naturalism were true. There is more than one definition of naturalism, but for now I shall take it to be the conjuction of three ideas:
1) The universe is causally closed
2) The universe is ultimately physical
3) The universe is governed by some combination of laws and chance (this does not exclude those who deny the existence of laws or chance provided that they affirm one of them)
The denial of any one of these three ideas means that one is not a believer in naturalism. Since scientists say that methodological naturalism is not the same as naturalism, I will proceed by assuming that the reasons that commit one to methodological naturalism (MN) are good reasons even to those who do not believe in naturalism. Before I begin looking at the various arguments for MN, it would be helpful to mention the main players and their articles.
One the side of those who affirm MN, we have an article by Michael Martin, and various books such as God, the Devil and Darwin by Niall Shanks, Finding Darwin's God by Kenneth Miller and The Tower of Babel: Evidence against the New Creationism by Robert Pennock. These books do not agree (Shanks thinks that Miller is a creationist), but they do believe in MN and do try to defend it.
On the side of those who deny MN, we have an a three-part article by Plantinga, an article by Dembski, an article by Stephen Meyer and a post by Studi Galeleini. These articles do not all take the same perspective, and they are not all 0f the same quality or length. However, I do think that they include a broad perspective on the various reasons that there are to deny MN.
It would take a while to look at various arguments for and against MN, and I plan to do so in later posts. However, my focus in going to be on the sort of arguments present in the works I have already mentioned.
1) The universe is causally closed
2) The universe is ultimately physical
3) The universe is governed by some combination of laws and chance (this does not exclude those who deny the existence of laws or chance provided that they affirm one of them)
The denial of any one of these three ideas means that one is not a believer in naturalism. Since scientists say that methodological naturalism is not the same as naturalism, I will proceed by assuming that the reasons that commit one to methodological naturalism (MN) are good reasons even to those who do not believe in naturalism. Before I begin looking at the various arguments for MN, it would be helpful to mention the main players and their articles.
One the side of those who affirm MN, we have an article by Michael Martin, and various books such as God, the Devil and Darwin by Niall Shanks, Finding Darwin's God by Kenneth Miller and The Tower of Babel: Evidence against the New Creationism by Robert Pennock. These books do not agree (Shanks thinks that Miller is a creationist), but they do believe in MN and do try to defend it.
On the side of those who deny MN, we have an a three-part article by Plantinga, an article by Dembski, an article by Stephen Meyer and a post by Studi Galeleini. These articles do not all take the same perspective, and they are not all 0f the same quality or length. However, I do think that they include a broad perspective on the various reasons that there are to deny MN.
It would take a while to look at various arguments for and against MN, and I plan to do so in later posts. However, my focus in going to be on the sort of arguments present in the works I have already mentioned.
posted by Matthew at 10:24 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home